Despite the best efforts of the Church, various heresies, secret societies and mystery cults hide within the cracks of society like weeds. None are more frustrating to pin down than the elusive Fox Hunters.
Their name likely comes from a saying popular in the five merchant cities, “to go on a fox hunt” means to chase a glamorous but ultimately unachievable goal. For those among my colleagues who have not studied the coastal fairytales, a fox is a kind of mischievous wolf-creature with a colorful red pelt said to steal wayward children, marry people under a disguise, and laugh terribly. Despite what drunk sailors might say, there is no such thing as a fox.
From this you would think that the moniker is a jest, an injoke of sorts, however Fox Hunters are the kind who take jokes very seriously. Vagabonds, charlatans, boogeymen, in painted masks and smoke-tinted glasses. They claim their quarry can vanish at the nearest whiff of danger so they must be masters of concealment. They claim their quarry hides in the gaps of human perception so they must see without looking. Never trust a word one says, because they are devoted to (or some say against) No God At All.
It’s difficult to distinguish which of their tricks are granted from No God At All and what is common chicanery, but this is what we know. A Hunter Aspirant must first undergo a strenuous and potentially lethal rite that makes the fledgling “less real” or “more fake” depending on who you ask. Hunters Aspirant are limited to tricks that are generally reproducible via mundane means except for the boons they might seek from the three Vermin Kings, who can warp the marginally unreal Aspirant to better serve in their court. Above them are the Hunters Imminent, called so because they supposedly have seen a living fox, which let me remind you, does not exist. Whatever they think they found allows them to commit crimes against reality, traffic with spirits and earn great fame. Most mysterious of all are the Hunters Actual, who are whispered to have actually caught a fox, which to reiterate is not possible. Thes urban legends are claimed to be favored by fate.
FRIEND OF THE EMPTY SPACES (Primeumaton)
On the brink of starvation, in total darkness, swallow a stone that has been worn smooth by an underground river.
The empty spaces of the world acknowledge that you belong there. As long as you are in an enclosed space underground, you have perfect blindsight and can never die of hunger or thirst, although you will still waste away and grow weak if you don't eat or drink. The light of the sun feels uncomfortably hot on your skin, no matter what the temperature is. It doesn't want you anymore.
Aspirant Tricks
One must be a FRIEND OF THE EMPTY SPACES to learn these tricks.
VACANT MOUSE HOLE (Gorinich Serpant)
Be locked in a cage, and in said cage be brought into structure that is vast, forgotten and stripped of anything of value. You must be left there for a week. Then those who carried you here must come back and earnestly try to find you again. If they succeed try again.
When in the dark and unseen, you can fit through any hole that can fit your skull. When in the dark, unseen and no one imagines you could be there, fit through any hole you can fit your thumb. It's advised not to explain how this power works, because your allies are not no ones.
Substitution (AnyTime)
Avoid great consequences for your misdeeds by within a moments notice hiding in an absurdly unlikely manner, such as by placing a lampshade over your head, or fitting into a small crate while leaving your boots under the curtain as decoy.
If your exact position has not been established, you can declare that you were hiding in plain sight all along. Once per day, if you would be found out, you can declare that it was actually just a human-sized decoy you left there, and you are already running away.
Mousehole Ridealong (Semiurge)
Save a rodent from a trap or cat, then follow it to gain an audience with the Rat King. Make a good impression on him.
If you feed a mouse or rat a luxurious ration, such as it could never scavenge from the garbage (worth twice as much as a regular ration) you can grab its tail and be pulled along by it through an opening big enough to fit it but not you.
Knight of the Rat King (Loch)
After making a good impression on the Rat King, swear fealty to him.
You are given a loyal retainer, a 1HD Rat-Knight. He takes the form of a dog-sized black rat with +1 to Hit, that can take the form of a halfling if it's entirely necessary (he would prefer not to.) The Rat-Knight is a wonderful tracker and a connoisseur of wines.
Sleep With Fishes (TheFirstGokun)
Woo the Salmon King, and learn one of his many secrets.
You are given a loyal retainer, a 1HD Mermaid. She takes the form of a woman with a fishy tail or a fishy head, whichever is more convenient. She is trained in social graces and piano, and can always point towards true North. Once, she can produce a pearl worth 40gp from her mouth.
Making Waves (Eos)
Marry the Salmon King, and have him allow you to see his true form.
Any retainers you have gains a permanent bonus HD if they swear an oath of loyalty to you and your husband, lost should your covenant of marriage ever be broken, in addition you are now a mermaid of some sort. Choose a single aquatic creature, whenever the physical characteristics of that creature would be beneficial for you to have, you have them, and whenever they would be detrimental you don't. This can never make you appear fully human or fully like the creature, you are always obviously both.
Pirate Wings (CatDragon)
Swear an oath of service to the Bird King.
You grow a pair of large bird wings out of your back. It takes a full round and some personal space to gain enough momentum to launch into the air. You may fly 40’ per round, but painfully lose these wings if you ever break your oath to the Bird King.
Explorer's Hearsay (Saltygoo)
Bury a chest with treasures in an abandoned or uncharted place.
Once per new region you travel to, you happen to know the location of a buried chest filled with objects of your choice worth as much as the content of your chest. You can always go back to your original cache to increase its value, but there is 2/6 chance each time it has been looted.
Tracking (Owlbear)
Spend a month in intimate contact with a certain substance, and an hour a day analyzing its texture, composition, notable information.
You can track any creature you are familiar with over the terrain you chose. Popular terrain options include grass, sand, marble, snow, mud, cobbled stones, water, and ectoplasm (for ghost hunters).
Trappist (MystralianCryatist)
Spend a month tracking a single creature. If you ever lose its trail, start again.
Having tracked this creature, you know its habits. Therefore, you know exactly where and how to place traps that it won’t notice. This functions on all creatures which have similar habits (small land mammal, dragon, noble, frost wraith, swamp leech, city spirit, sea serpent, unquiet dead, etc), and allows you to either enhance the difficulty to discover your trap or the damage it will inflict if it is undetected.
ACME Subscription (Molochrome)
trick an enemy into willingly stepping into a damaging trap you or they prepared beforehand, or; survive an encounter with one hp, against a opponent you were planning to eat.
Against a specific form of damage or individual creature, chosen beforehand and unchangeable for a day, you can never be brought below 1hp or be given a wound by a single attack of that type or by that creature. Furthermore, once per week you may sacrifice an amount of gold equal to your current hp doubled to summon up to your remaining gold divided by your current Wounds or the difference between your maximum health and current health in non-magical equipment or weapons.
COYOTE TIME (Shadowfray)
Unintentionally knock yourself to 0 HP, such as being tricked into stepping into one of your own traps.
As long as you don't look down you can't fall. When you hit 0 HP you can perform one more action before falling unconscious / dying.
Imminent Tricks
One must see a living fox with your own two eyes to learn these tricks.
VULPINE EYES (CatDragon)
Strike an accord with a creature that does not exist, or somehow steal a decade of someone’s lifespan.
People can’t break eye contact with your vibrant gaze unless you let them.
Sower of Fangs (Semiurge)
Hunt down and consume a creature with nothing but your teeth and nails. Break a tooth upon its bones, and plant the broken shard among a tree's roots.
Bury a beast's tooth, or embed it in a surface. Thereafter you can command the tooth to sprout into a copy of that beast's head, which bites everything it can reach for 1d6 rounds before rotting into mulch.
Veil of the Other (Owlbear)
Dissect a rock formation, a tree, an animal and a sentient being. Stop when you find their soul. Then find what’s beneath it.
You know what’s below you, behind you, and in shadows you aren’t observing. If someone is trying to keep a secret from you, you learn the secret. If they hide from you, you find them; if they whisper, you hear their words; you read the bluff from the poker face, and see the palimpsest by means of the history that hides it.
Rewind (AntiTime)
Talk with an ancient clock to understand why is time constantly running forward, and what exactly is it fleeing from. Purge yourself of the fear that fuels time. If you are ever cured from this madness, start over.
Causality is more of a suggestion to you. By performing movement exactly in reverse, you can undo actions you have taken. Unstab someone you have killed, untrigger a trap you have stepped on, uncook a fried egg. Going more than 83 seconds back is inadvisable
Uncity Navigation (Gorinich Serpant)
Enter into a transitory space, like a train station or airport, somewhere with high traffic but no one lives. Then wander unthinking, following the crowd, letting the mass of people wear away your sense of direction like how currents wear away the jagged edges on river stones. Continue until your in a city you do not recognise, then continue until your in a city that is not a city. If you make eye contact during this process, start again.
If you choose to get lost in an urban environment, you will find yourself in the Uncity. It is not meant for people, it is nor meant for demons, it is not meant for anything. There is no one here, just endless senseless architecture. In the false light of this place, you are beyond the touch of the sun and it's laws. Most would be doomed to never find a way out, but you can sense the sun's heat leaking in through the fractures. Follow this heat to return back to a real city, but it might not be the same time, place or world you entered.
Congratulations! You have reached Lvl 99 in [Ẽ̶̔R̵͐̚R̸̀͛Ơ̷̑R̷͂̏]! You have obtained a Skillscape! (Monochrome)
Spend 3 IRL hours cumulative over multiple session's or multiple attempts at different things of the same nature, attempting and failing to accomplish or complete any non-combat task or stricture that could be labeled under a one-word definition and name. This is your “Skill”.(Ex. “Sleeping”, “Cooking”, “Juggling”, “Runecrafting”, “Skateboarding”) You can obtain multiples of this ∆elta, but the level/bonus cap is 5 lower for every following skill, through it cannot fall below +5.
Whatever Skill you have qualified for is now your life. You Are a Bowyer, or Jester, or a Goth. This is recognized and approved of by the universe (big definitions appended to your soul make it easier to decide where to place you after you die). You always get a +1 or advantage, whichever is more advantageous once you have gained your Skill. Every time you succeed at a task or a roll falling under the conceptual umbrella of your Skill, you may Level Up, increasing your bonus by one, or how many dice you can roll for advantage. These levels are independent of anything besides your Skill and stacks up to a sum total of all your individual Skills at Level 30. Every multiple of ten you have Leveled in a Skill is another degree of regional, national, international fame in ever increasing umbrella’s outside your area of expertise (you ever seen a scientist or politician or religious figure that could shut up and stick to their lane? For good or ill?) until you are the undisputed global authority on your Skill. This usually falls around Lvl 25.
Living Legend (Saltygoo)
Get your name or alias published and disseminated through books/pamphlets/bounty notices across all of the 5 great merchant cities
When you dramatically reveal your name to creatures that share a language with you, you can project an aura backed up by your reputation up to the size of a galleon or as small as a rat. For people who understand you, you will be treated as if you were as big as your aura. If your reputation is of excellence, violence, or bravery, your aura can only be bigger than you, causing them to avoid crossing that space or be accordingly intimated. The bravest or most reckless might see it as a challenge. If your reputation is of incompetence or cowardice, your aura can only be smaller than you, leading people to ignore or underestimate you.
King Rat (Loch)
Become master of all criminals in a great merchant city.
You can turn a few gallons of water into bathtub gin with a wave of your hand, and you'll know if your criminal underlings betray you.
City Veins (Primeumaton)
In a city where you rule the criminal underworld, make records of the actual underworld beneath it; tunnels, basements, sewers, dungeons, et cetera. Leave no passage uncatalogued. Then, start adding your own.
You are a ruler of the world below the world, but not the ruler. Yet. In the dungeons beneath your city, you cannot be impeded. Locks and traps open and disarm themselves before you; monsters and other subterranean critters, such as criminals, at least begrudgingly respect you, and will not attack you unless they have no other choice. In other subterranean places, such as wilderness dungeons or other cities, you are regarded as a foreign lord- no doubt suspicious, but not the kind of person you can murder on sight.
Come a-Knocking (TheFirstGokun)
Locate three of the following: the debtor, on the run; the double-agent, a mask behind a mask; the sniper, motionless at their post; the sponsor, in their opulent seclusion; the one pulling all the strings.
You can find anyone. They get one Save to see you coming.
A Slippery Slope (Eos)
By way of debt, friendship, feud, marriage, and infamy; become socially submerged enough in the world of spirits to obtain a Spiritual Name that others can call upon or recognize you by.
You, for all purposes, are a Spirit not a mortal. This gives you a limited toolbox of negotiated power based on which spirits you are most aligned with or against upon the moment of acquiring a Spiritual Name but at minimum you always acquire these changes:
Can glamor yourself to appear your original mortal form
Know if anyone you make direct eye contact with is a spirit of not. Many more people are then most expect. (All talking animals and kings are spirits, for example, if they know it or not)
No longer age
Beyond the Veil (MystralianCryatist)
Whether by guile, force, or public opinion, reveal ten hidden spirits as what they are. Withstand what retribution they unleash. They must be knowingly disguising themselves to count. This gives you the Title of Veilbreaker, appended to your Spiritual Name or becoming your Spiritual Name should you lack one.
Your glamor, should you have one, is enhanced. This applies both to a Spirit glamor of mortality and to spells/prayers/techniques of illusion or disguise. Having broken so many glamors, you become aware whenever someone attempts to break your own. This manifests as a roll to resist magical dispersal, a bonus against scrutiny, or a detriment inflicted on others through mysterious means - whichever suits the situation (ask GM). Additionally, it functions as a sovereign remedy against those problems which sovereigns cannot remedy. Namely: when glamored you are immune to being detected as a spirit by direct eye contact. Additionally, every time you sunder another hidden spirit’s disguise you gain one MD. This does not stack, and is capped at one.
When obtaining it, roll 1d6 to pick from the following:
(0.) Dispels your glamor on cast, or at the most inconvenient moment soon afterwards.
(1.) Counts at 2 (Sum) when used in a spell that gives you or an ally/allies the benefit of an illusion or disguise.
(2.) As per 1, but counts as two Dice being used instead of counting as 2 (Sum).
(3.) As 1, but for dispelling illusions or disguises from others instead of granting them.
(4.) As 2, but with 3’s dispelling proviso.
(5.) Can be used to cast Inverted Glamor on a person or object, causing them to register as a spirit even though they aren’t.
(6.) Can be converted into a crown and sold for the usual sum that a crown of its type and material sells for. Roll two further d6 subtables.
Materials: (0. Antimagic 1. Copper 2. Bronze 3. Iron (or false iron, if the campaign has iron as harmful to Spirits) 4. Lead 5. Gold 6. Silver 7. Faesteel)
Type: (0. Symbol of Blasphemy 1. Torc 2. Diadem 3. Hoop Crown 4. Crown coin 5. Skullcap [cervelliere] 6. Tooth Cap 7. Writ of Safe Passage)
(7.) Automatically expends itself to negate the next negative effect you would receive. Cannot activate manually, and cancels out the next MD gain from sundering a disguise.
The Many Masked (Shadowfray)
Impersonate another for a week without getting caught, then make an offering to the Masked Saint.
With an hours work and suitable materials (costing as much as a heavy sword) you can craft a mask of anyone you have seen. By blessing this mask with the hair or blood of the creature you are emulating the mask now holds their image in its memory. Donning the mask you take on the perfect visage of them until the mask is removed.
Actual Tricks
One must catch a fox to learn these tricks. What you do with the caught fox is your choice.
Plot Armor (Shadowfray)
Have a goal you burn to complete, then get as close as possible to death as the ruleset allows but survive. Plot Armor cannot be used to gain this template.
Whenever you would die you may expend this template. If you do, somehow you don't die, even through nearly impossible contrived events.
Reality is Stranger than Fiction (MystralianCryatist)
A series of seemingly impossible events happens to you. (Clarify with GM if whatever you are thinking of counts.)
Damned, Saved, or Bemused by the events that occurred, you have devoted your life to the study of such tale-worthy talk. As such, you can cause a Certain Death, Defied Death, or inExplicable Miracle to occur for one other person. This, unfortunately, is so mentally strenuous that setting it up clears your mind's first-hand accounts of them. Actually witnessing your orchestrated event occur wipes your memory of the initial event - thus removing your motivation to research, and this template. Should you successfully execute a plan, you can regain the wherewithal to enact another one with several months-to-a-year's worth (check with GM) of first-hand research into such events - different than the ones used for the previous plan, of course!
Endless Pages (Shadowfray)
Finish a grand quest, then immortalize it in an epic.
With a quick ritual you can blur the lines between realities and enter any piece of fiction you know and bring along friends. If you play a role and reach the story's conclusion you get a boon chosen by the GM. Take care straying from the known path, for reality gets weirder the further you travel and the longer you stay. Some even say routes to other stories exist if you know how to look.
Discussion
I don't have much too say about the details of this Exquisite CΔrpse becouse I have been sitting on it for many months and the initial thoughts have run away somewhere. I think after having done three of these community events, I think my favorite part of them is trying to integrate them into a cohesive whole from the disperate themes everyone puts together. I don't know if there will be a fourth, on one hand I have a neat gimmick in mind, on the other hand deltas were going out of fashion back when I posted Forest Law and are absolutely out of fashion now. We'll see.
